COLUMBIA, MO. • It’s Kentucky Day at Mizzou Arena.
Let’s take a closer look at today’s matchup between the Tigers and No. 21 Wildcats:
TALL TASK?
Height isn’t everything in college basketball but it’s a big thing. Kentucky, once again, has one of the nation’s tallest teams, averaging around 6-7 per regular by KenPom.com’s average height metric. That makes John Calipari’s Wildcats the fourth-tallest team in the country behind only Syracuse, San Jose State and Duke. Missouri ranks No. 45, averaging just under 6-6 per regular. When it comes to height, this is the most evenly matched Missouri-Kentucky game in four years. And that might be significant.
In Missouri’s first two years in the SEC, the Tigers ranked Nos. 52 and 23 in average height. That 23rd-ranked team featured 6-9 Johnathan Williams III, 6-10 Ryan Rosburg, 6-9 Tony Criswell and 6-11 Keanau Post, plus two big guards in Jabari Brown and Jordan Clarkson, both 6-5. The Tigers have never beaten Kentucky, but Mizzou’s first two SEC teams were darn competitive, losing by seven (in overtime) and five, respectively.
The last three years, the Kim Anderson Tigers were much shorter (Nos. 142, 254, 209 in average height) and offered far less resistance against the Cats, losing by 49, 16, 34 and 10.
Maybe there’s hope in MU’s restored frontcourt with 6-10 Jeremiah Tilmon and 6-11 Jontay Porter both coming off productive, though foul-impacted games at Alabama.
WHO GUARDS KNOX?
Missouri hoped to land Kevin Knox as the final piece to the dazzling freshman class. Instead, the class has been whittled down to Jontay and Jeremiah, two promising pieces but not the five-man class the Tigers expected to have back in the summer and early fall. But as for Saturday, who guards Knox? He’s 6-9 but mostly hangs out on the perimeter as a stretch-four. KenPom rates the freshman forward most comparably to former Duke forward Kyle Singler and Arizona’s Chase Budinger, both bigger wing players who could shoot with range.
Knox has scored in double figures 17 times, leads UK with 15.6 points a game but attempts only 22.8 percent of his field goals at the rim, according to HoopMath.com. That’s not very much for a player of his size. By comparison, that’s about the same rate as Mizzou’s Jordan Barnett (23.4) and Porter (21.7). Barnett figures to have his hands full with 6-7 P.J. Washington, leaving Knox to Porter and Kevin Puryear. Kentucky’s top guards are bigger, 6-6 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and 6-5 Hamidou Diallo, giving them considerable height on the Mizzou backcourt of Robertson (6-3) and Jordan Geist (6-2).
FORGET STYLE POINTS
Martin was 1-4 head-to-head against Calipari’s Wildcats when he coached at Tennessee from 2011-14. The lone win was a blowout, 88-58, in 2013. The Vols won that game in the first five minutes, running out to a 31-12 lead. It was an unusually high-scoring game for a Tennessee team that preferred to grind out victories, but the Vols got to the foul line 31 times and outrebounded the Cats 39-21. Martin’s best teams aren’t flashy. The Tigers’ best wins this year (Tennessee, Alabama) were built on smothering halfcourt defense and making smart, tough, physical plays on offense.
For the Tigers to finally snap their Kentucky skid, do they have to grime things up? Control the clock, control the boards, live on the free throw line. That could be the recipe.